# everynamecounts-Challenge 2025 | Prisoner registrations card
________________________________________________
New information about individual fates
This prisoner registration card filled out for a little boy called Marek is one of the cards in question. According to this document, Marek was Polish, and he was born in the Auschwitz concentration camp on August 16, 1943. He was assigned a prisoner number – 155912 – shortly after birth.
In October 1944, the Nazis deported him to a camp for Polish children. We have no record of what happened to him after that. After the war, Marek’s parents spent years searching for their son, but they never found him. All efforts to trace him came to nothing.
Personal stories like Marek’s highlight both the brutality of Nazi persecution and our responsibility to remember its victims. Marek’s prisoner registration card shows that the scattered remnants of Nazi bureaucracy can now help us remember those who suffered persecution.
These documents are not only records of individual lives, but also evidence of the scale and systematic organization of Nazi crimes. A process that began with marginalization and discrimination ended with the mass murder of millions.
________________________________________________
The Nazis tore tens of thousands of children away from their families and Germanized them by force. Marek, a young Polish boy, may have been one of them. According to a prisoner registration card, he was born in Auschwitz (Auschwitz Memorial / Muzeum Auschwitz) and probably deported to Germany when he was a baby. Marek’s parents spent years searching for their son. His prisoner registration card is one of the documents that we are going to digitize as part of the #everynamecounts challenge around International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27. By digitizing the documents and putting them online, we are making them accessible to the public in the hope that this will lead to the clarification of more fates.
According to the prisoner registration card, Marek Josef Alf or Alt was born in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp on August 16, 1943. Immediately after his birth, he was assigned a prisoner number: 155912. In October 1944, the Nazis deported Marek to a camp for Polish children. There are no records of what happened to him after that.
Marek’s parents desperately tried to find him, turning for help to the Child Search Branch, which was part of the International Tracing Service at the time, the predecessor organization of the Arolsen Archives, as we are now called. Here is an extract from his child search file. The last document dates back to 1952. If he survived, he would already have been eight years of age by then.
We do not know anything more about his fate.
The Nazis persecuted and murdered millions of people. Help remember the victims! To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are joining forces with you and other volunteers all over the world to digitize the prisoner registration cards from concentration camps like Auschwitz .
source: www.facebook.com/ArolsenArchives
________________________________________________
Help us build a digital memorial to the victims of Nazism
#everynamecounts invites people to help build the world’s largest digital memorial to the victims and survivors of the Nazi era. This crowdsourcing initiative makes it easy to take a stand and get involved yourself. To join in, all you need is a smartphone or a computer with access to the internet and a few minutes of spare time – then you can start digitizing the names and information on the index cards. When you finish processing a document, you can download the results directly and share them on social media. We hope lots of you will join in and tag @ArolsenArchives.
________________________________________________
∎ arolsen-archives.org/en/news/everynamecounts-challenge-fo...
➤ ∎∎∎ everynamecounts.arolsen-archives.org/
∎ www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Auschwitz_concentration_camp
∎ www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Nazi_concentration_camps
∎www.facebook.com/auschwitzmemorial
# everynamecounts-Challenge 2025 | Prisoner registrations card
________________________________________________
New information about individual fates
This prisoner registration card filled out for a little boy called Marek is one of the cards in question. According to this document, Marek was Polish, and he was born in the Auschwitz concentration camp on August 16, 1943. He was assigned a prisoner number – 155912 – shortly after birth.
In October 1944, the Nazis deported him to a camp for Polish children. We have no record of what happened to him after that. After the war, Marek’s parents spent years searching for their son, but they never found him. All efforts to trace him came to nothing.
Personal stories like Marek’s highlight both the brutality of Nazi persecution and our responsibility to remember its victims. Marek’s prisoner registration card shows that the scattered remnants of Nazi bureaucracy can now help us remember those who suffered persecution.
These documents are not only records of individual lives, but also evidence of the scale and systematic organization of Nazi crimes. A process that began with marginalization and discrimination ended with the mass murder of millions.
________________________________________________
The Nazis tore tens of thousands of children away from their families and Germanized them by force. Marek, a young Polish boy, may have been one of them. According to a prisoner registration card, he was born in Auschwitz (Auschwitz Memorial / Muzeum Auschwitz) and probably deported to Germany when he was a baby. Marek’s parents spent years searching for their son. His prisoner registration card is one of the documents that we are going to digitize as part of the #everynamecounts challenge around International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27. By digitizing the documents and putting them online, we are making them accessible to the public in the hope that this will lead to the clarification of more fates.
According to the prisoner registration card, Marek Josef Alf or Alt was born in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp on August 16, 1943. Immediately after his birth, he was assigned a prisoner number: 155912. In October 1944, the Nazis deported Marek to a camp for Polish children. There are no records of what happened to him after that.
Marek’s parents desperately tried to find him, turning for help to the Child Search Branch, which was part of the International Tracing Service at the time, the predecessor organization of the Arolsen Archives, as we are now called. Here is an extract from his child search file. The last document dates back to 1952. If he survived, he would already have been eight years of age by then.
We do not know anything more about his fate.
The Nazis persecuted and murdered millions of people. Help remember the victims! To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are joining forces with you and other volunteers all over the world to digitize the prisoner registration cards from concentration camps like Auschwitz .
source: www.facebook.com/ArolsenArchives
________________________________________________
Help us build a digital memorial to the victims of Nazism
#everynamecounts invites people to help build the world’s largest digital memorial to the victims and survivors of the Nazi era. This crowdsourcing initiative makes it easy to take a stand and get involved yourself. To join in, all you need is a smartphone or a computer with access to the internet and a few minutes of spare time – then you can start digitizing the names and information on the index cards. When you finish processing a document, you can download the results directly and share them on social media. We hope lots of you will join in and tag @ArolsenArchives.
________________________________________________
∎ arolsen-archives.org/en/news/everynamecounts-challenge-fo...
➤ ∎∎∎ everynamecounts.arolsen-archives.org/
∎ www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Auschwitz_concentration_camp
∎ www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Nazi_concentration_camps
∎www.facebook.com/auschwitzmemorial